Translation, Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Standardized Cosmesis and Health Nasal Outcomes Survey (SCHNOS) in Italian

Backgrounds Rhinoplasty necessarily concerns functional and cosmetic aspects, and outcomes of both should be assessed in each patient. There has been a lack in the literature in Italian for a comprehensive tool for assessing both aspects of rhinoplasty. The objective is to translate and validate the Standardized Cosmesis and Health Nasal Outcomes Survey (SCHNOS) into Italian.

Methods Forward and back-translation was used. Content validity was evaluated by experts and by patient interviews. Internal consistency was assessed by a Cronbach's alpha. The structure validity was assessed by an exploratory factor analysis.

Results Cognitive interviews of 10 rhinoplasty patients resulted in a good overall comprehension of the SCHNOS. Of the 411 respondents, 281 (32%) were women, and the average age was 33.6 (11.3) years. The alpha was excellent for both the obstruction domain (SCHNOS-O) (0.90) and the cosmetic domain (SCHNOS-C) (0.94). All the correlations between repeated measures were moderate to very strong. The exploratory factor analysis demonstrated unidimensionality of both the SCHNOS-O and the SCHNOS-C scores.

Conclusions The SCHNOS was successfully translated and validated in Italian and can be recommended for a clinical use among rhinoplasty patients.